ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates law's counter-archive through a reflection on the materiality of archival sources and the significance of objective status when such sources are presented as evidence in legal proceedings. It suggests that rather than regarding archival sources simply as documents, they might better be understood as artefacts, 'the imprint or inscription of the human on the object, the page or the body'. The chapter investigates these issues with reference to documentary evidence tendered in a legal claim for compensation taken by members of the Stolen Generations in Australia in the case of Cubillo v Commonwealth. In Australia, there is inconsistency in judicial decisions about the evidentiary value of sources of historical knowledge and insufficient judicial understanding of approaches to interpretation of archival documents. When archival sources appear as evidence in legal proceedings, such as in claims concerning historical injustices, they are commonly accorded authority based on their content, on the character of documents as store-houses of information.
